Kissing to Be Clever
Artist: Culture Club
Community Score: 5.33

Kissing to Be Clever is the album that put Culture Club on the musical map. Incorporating pop, rock, dance, new wave, soul, and Caribbean rhythms (an amalgamation of "cultures"), the result was a soulful, progressive pop outing that scored several landmark international hits and made a star out of the band's outrageous frontman, Boy George. A... Read More

Zoot Locker: The Best of the Zoot, 1968-1971
Artist: Zoot

Like fellow Aussies the Sherbs, Zoot never escaped teen-star status. But as Zoot Locker proves, they were certainly adapt at churning out clever pop tracks. Because of their time period, Zoot used every trick in the psychedelic book; but most songs maintain the three-minute mark, resulting in shrewd and skewered singles much like the Move... Read More

Safety Dance
Artist: Men Without Hats
You Broke My Heart in 17 Places
Artist: Tracey Ullman

Although comic actress Tracey Ullman is these days entirely dismissive of her early-'80s sideline career as a chart-topping pop singer, that's an unfair assessment. There is nothing much of lasting import on Ullman's 1983 debut, You Broke My Heart in 17 Places, but it's kitschy pop fluff at its best. The twin highlights are the title track and... Read More

Rip It Up - JAPAN BONUS TRACKS
Artist: Orange Juice

Joined by Malcolm Ross (ex-Josef K) and sublime percussionist Zeke Manyika, Edwyn Collins moved further away from the pure pop sound of old and further into cross-rhythms and skinny-white-boy funk on this, Orange Juice's second album. That the band was not wholly submerged or embarrassed by this bold move is a tribute to Collins' skill as a... Read More

Searching for the Young Soul Rebels
Artist: Dexys Midnight Runners
Community Score: 10.00

The crackling stations being switched on the radio and the gang shout followed by the spoken injunction to "burn it down" sound like they should be starting off a Sham 69 record. Then "Burn It Down" actually starts, with its horn section, Hammond organ and Kevin Rowland's utterly unconventional soul vocals. The cult of Dexy's, and this album in... Read More

Speaking in Tongues
Artist: Talking Heads
Community Score: 6.21

Talking Heads found a way to open up the dense textures of the music they had developed with Brian Eno on their two previous studio albums for Speaking in Tongues, and were rewarded with their most popular album yet. Ten backup singers and musicians accompanied the original quartet, but somehow the sound was more spacious, and the music admitted... Read More

Remain in Light
Artist: Talking Heads
Community Score: 7.98

The musical transition that seemed to have just begun with Fear of Music came to fruition on Talking Heads' fourth album, Remain in Light. "I Zimbra" and "Life During Wartime" from the earlier album served as the blueprints for a disc on which the group explored African polyrhythms on a series of driving groove tracks, over which David Byrne... Read More

Scandal
Artist: Scandal

According to legend, the video for "Love's Got a Line on You" cost less than 20 dollars to make and features an unknown Jon Bon Jovi posing as Scandal's guitarist. Columbia signed the band based on the clip and the cut, and Scandal went on to become the biggest-selling EP in Columbia history. But since side one's brilliant one-two punch,... Read More

Beauty and the Beat
Artist: The Go-Go's
Community Score: 9.93

Although the relatively polished production belies the Go-Go's' punk roots, Beauty and the Beat remains one of the cornerstone albums of new wave, bristling with energy, revamped surf rock and girl-group hooks, and an intoxicating sense of fun. The infectious, bouncy "We Got the Beat" and the pulsating "Our Lips Are Sealed," which Jane Wiedlin... Read More

Touch
Artist: Eurythmics
Community Score: 7.30

Eurythmics followed their 1982 breakthrough album Sweet Dreams with the superior Touch, which yielded three hit singles and kept the innovative duo at the forefront of the 1980s British new wave explosion and MTV phenomenon. Mixing cold, hard, synthesized riffs with warm, luscious vocals, the duo crafted some of the most unique and trendsetting... Read More

Colour by Numbers
Artist: Culture Club
Community Score: 7.50

Colour by Numbers was Culture Club's most successful album, and, undoubtedly, one of the most popular albums from the 1980s. Scoring no less than four U.S. hit singles (and five overseas), this set dominated the charts for a full year, both in the United States and in Europe. The songs were infectious, the videos were all over MTV, and the band... Read More